From the Catholic Star Herald, Bishop Joseph A. Williams offers some encouraging words:
Over the years, I have experienced first-hand how a diaconate vocation is indeed good news for the Church. As a young priest, I was assigned to a parish that was experiencing great turmoil. I struggled to navigate that turmoil while still providing green pastures for the sheep who were entrusted to my care, including celebrating four Masses on a Sunday in two different languages. After several months, I wrote to the archbishop to request priestly assistance to help bear such a load. You can imagine my surprise when I received a call from a deacon candidate by the name of Luis Rubi informing me that he had been assigned to the parish to help me. In my immediate confusion, I asked him if he were in the seminary! “No, I will be ordained a permanent deacon this fall,” he replied.
I tried my best during our phone conversation to mask my disappointment. (I am not sure how successful I was.) “But that won’t help me with the number of Sunday Masses,” I thought to myself. Of course, I accepted the will of the archbishop and discovered once again the wonder of God’s providence.
Deacon Rubi ended up being just what the doctor ordered for me and for the parish. He helped me to care for the rapidly growing Latino congregation, and he took special care of the altar servers, whom he diligently formed to serve the Mass with reverence and devotion. He was passionate about marriage and family and helped us to launch “Sagrada Familia,” an apostolate for the Latino families of south Minneapolis. He was always available to those families when they called him in distress, and he was for them truly an icon of Christ the Servant.
That is what we celebrate when God calls someone to the Order of Deacon. In the Catholic Church, a deacon serves “in persona Christi Servi” – in the person of Christ the Servant – meaning their ordained ministry is a sacramental expression of Christ’s own self-emptying and humble service to humanity. That is precisely what I have witnessed in the deacons I have encountered in South Jersey this past year. I have been deeply impressed with their zeal for the Gospel and servant-hearted disposition toward their pastors and the people of the parishes where they are assigned. I have especially noted their lively sense of missionary discipleship, particularly their boldness in inviting those who have left the practice of the faith back into relationship with Jesus and with His Church.
These deacons will have the great blessing of welcoming 15 brothers into their ranks on Oct. 4. Let us keep our deacons and these candidates in our prayers, and let us thank the Master of the harvest for an abundance of servant-laborers in the Diocese of Camden!
